Another tool that seems like the holy grail of airplane-building is the flanging die. There are a couple of ways to make flanges in metal, but from what I've read, nothing works as good as a self-centering press die. Using the drawings from the Zenith builders manual, I made this - the first of two I have to have. I say it's the holy grail of airplane-building because these really seem to hang a lot of builders up - these and the bending brake. Now with the completion of both a brake and flanging die. I've pretty much got the tools to make any kind of bend I need to. A test press produced a perfectly flanged hole. Just in case you're wondering, I made them from "Timbertech" artificial building material that they use to build decks. For lack of a better word, it's like plastic. I turned the male die on a wood lathe - first thing I ever turned in my entire life. To make the female, I cut out a hole from the blank and used a router with a 45 degree chamfering bit to cut the angle.
